MarySue and the Bombastic Booty!
by mdunham2
Summary: Unspoiled 5th year fic! A great many implausible ships. Poorly written. Really a shame. Yes, here it is: A new girl comes to Hogwarts called Mary-Sue and Harry falls in love with her. The situation is further complicated by the dark machinations of the n
1. Chapter 1

TITLE: Mary-Sue and the Bombastic Booty (1/?)   
  
AUTHOR NAME: Connor Coyne (mdunham2)   
  
AUTHOR EMAIL: vehiclecitykid@hotmail.com   
  
CATEGORY: Artsy-fartsy parody, dark humor   
  
KEYWORDS: Harry, Artaud, Weasley, fifth, ship   
  
RATING: PG-13   
  
SPOILERS: All the Books   
  
SUMMARY: A great many implausible ships. Poorly written. Really a shame. Yes, here it is: A new girl comes to Hogwarts called Mary-Sue and Harry falls in love with her. The situation is further complicated by the dark machinations of the new DADA teacher. Chaos. Plenty.   
  
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Artaud quotes taken from The Theater and its Double, translated by Mary Caroline Richards and published by Grove Press, and Antonin Artaud Selected Writings, translated by Helen Weaver and published by University of California Press. I would also like to apologize to William Shakespeare, Greek Religions, and major religions which, while part of the public domain, should probably have been treated with more respect. ;)   
  
AUTHOR' S NOTE: My name is Connor Coyne, but my EZboard login is mdunham2. This story is dedicated to posts 1 to 90 on the following Sugarquill thread: http://pub40.ezboard.com/fsugarquillfrm4.showMessage?topicID=675.topic   
  
Part One: HARRY POTTER AND THE PANDORA'S BOX or MARY-SUE ARRIVES   
  
---------------------------------------------   
  
"We need to live first of all; to believe in what makes us live and that something *makes* us live -- to believe that whatever is produced from the mysterious depths of ourselves need not forever haunt us as an exclusively digestive concern." -- Antonin Artaud   
  
---------------------------------------------   
  
CHAPTER ONE   
  
"GRYFFINDOR!" bellowed a brass voice, distorted in volume and pitch as though muffled by a soft, velvet pressure.   
  
Harry jolted awake as the table all around him erupted into applause, and the blue haired Beatrice Zaffer removed the hat and took her seat alongside her fellow Gryffindors. It was the beginning of Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the third sorting ceremony he'd attended, and the only one in which the sorting hat had rapped the background and reputation of each of Hogwarts' four houses.   
  
'Hey Hufflepuff puffers hope ya see,  
  
'at you got a consistent quality  
  
of constancy, reliability, an' loyalty.  
  
'cuz 'ats what Helga Hufflepuff wants you to be.'   
  
Harry hadn't noticed; he'd had been drifting between sleep and wakefulness through the whole procedure. He felt he hadn't slept in days, and the feeling was justified.   
  
Summer had burned. Burned like Delilah desires and Jezebel dreams, a constant haze of panic and anxiety. Uncle Vernon had kept him locked in the cupboard under the stairwell most of the time... the basement stairwell, and in the shadows among the rats and spiders, Harry drifted through livid dreams of serpents and death-eaters and You-Know-Who.   
  
Or, on other days, when something strange happened (strange being a black cat sitting on the corner for a suspiciously long time; definite bad luck for Harry), he was hurried over to crazy Arabella Figg's house for protection, and usually spent his time there listening to her innumerable, never-ending lectures on the addictiveness of Sugarquills.   
  
Now, though, things would be better. Hogwarts, hidden in the Welsh wilderness, was both safer and more enjoyable than life on Privet drive. Harry had already reunited with his best friends Ron, Ginny, and Hermione, and the train to the school had been filled with excited rumors of the year to come.   
  
Harry was a wizard. He had been born to wizards named Lily and James, but they had died one fateful October night when Harry was a year old. Voldemort had come to kill Harry, but had killed his parents instead. And yet, when You-Know-Who turned his powerful death curse against the Boy-Who-Lived himself, the Boy-Who-Lived, that is, Harry, lived. The curse rebounded on He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and He-Who-Leads-Death-Eaters-and-was-formerly-Hogwarts'-Head-Boy-'Tom-Riddle' fled into the darkness of the night, a shadow of his former self.   
  
Only to return fourteen years later with murder on his mind.   
  
All this raced through Harry's mind for the seven-hundredth-and-sixty-second time as Beatrice took her seat, the Great Hall gradually quieted, and headmaster Albus Dumbledore rose from his seat at the staff table.   
  
"Ahem," he said.   
  
The Great Hall erupted into laughter again.   
  
This was PoVo humor (Post-Voldemort), and if you'd been there, you would've laughed too.   
  
Dumbledore leaned over the table, his knuckles whitening as he surveyed the students with a grave, serious face.   
  
"Welcome to Hogwarts, those of you who are new here, and returning. Now before the feast begins, I have a few announcements to make."   
  
At this remark, all murmuring at the four student tables subsided, and Dumbledore relaxed a little, smiling slightly.   
  
"First years should be aware that the forbidden forest lives up to its name and is, in fact, forbidden. If you are a second year or older, and are interested in playing Quidditch for your house team, you'll want to see Madam Hooch. Also, at the encouragement of graduates and faculty, as well as the urging of letters that have flown in from all over England, we will be holding the Yule Ball again this year. Alright? We will hold the Yule Ball every year from now on."   
  
At this the hall erupted into cheers. Several students threw their hats into the air, as well as some plates and silverware, and Neville Longbottom fell off his stool, hit his head on the stone, and began bleeding on the floor. Nobody noticed but his girlfriend, Ginny. Dumbledore made a motion for silence.   
  
"Finally," he said, standing up straight, and extending his hand to his right, "we have several guests at Hogwarts this year. I would like you to meet Professor Antonin Artaud, our new Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher."   
  
For the first time, Harry noticed the frowning, translucent ghost hovering next to Severus Snape. Artaud's eyes seemed to swell in his face, but his chin and jaw were shrunken, and a few loose stands of black hair clung desperately to his head. "Doesn't he just look like a really old, ghost version of Snape?" hissed Ron across the table.   
  
"I know," Dumbledore continued, "you might have expected Tristan Tzara to fill the post, but he was misinformed when he applied for the DADA position here. I am sure you will find Professor Artaud a most competent and resourceful teacher. And last, but not least, I would like to announce our other special guest. May I introduce Hogwarts' first exchange-student... from the United States of America we have Mary-Sue Darkstar-Riddle."   
  
The candles and flames were abruptly extinguished, as if a sudden wind had come upon them. Only the dull flickering of lightning on the ceiling high above briefly illuminated the hall. And then there was light. "Look at her!" said Ron, eyes wide in surprise. Harry strained to see.   
  
A pale gray spotlight had fallen on the entrance to the great hall, and the girl who stood there was the most beautiful Harry had ever seen. She was lithe and long, in her mid-teens, and walked with a confident gait towards the front of the hall, held in the heart of the spotlight. As she passed Harry, his heart gave a painful lurch. Her silvery-blonde locks seemed to curl and writhe about her head, as though animated by some ephemeral, ethereal power. Her contagious crooked smile revealed sharp, cunning, straight white teeth. And her eyes, startlingly green, flashed like emeralds in the sun. For the record, her eyes were exactly like the sun; her lips, coral; her breasts, white; and so on, and so forth.   
  
She walked briskly towards the front of the hall, and the echo of every distancing footfall voiced "Heartbreak! Heartbreak!"   
  
The girl reached the front and stopped, and now the Hall was completely silent.   
  
Professor McGonagall nervously stood at the staff table and coughed, clearing her throat.   
  
"Um, um," she stammered. "D-D... Darkstar-Riddle, Mary-Sue."   
  
Mary-Sue stepped up to the stool and, gingerly holding the hat in her long fingers, sat down. With a careful smile, she slipped the hat over her head.   
  
"SLYTHERIN!" it cried.   
  
The Great Hall was filled with sound and light. The Slytherin table went crazy, eating candy, spilling drinks, dancing on the table. At the other three houses, the boys and some girls were sobbing all over their robes. Ron pounded his fist angrily on the table, Hermione yelled at him, and Ginny clamored urgently for someone to help Neville. Everyone was loud and excited, except Harry who, with an open mouth and a colorless face, gradually tore his napkin to pieces, his eyes struggling to catch Mary-Sue's attention.   
  
And just as Harry sought Mary-Sue, Artaud fixed his smoldering gaze on the Boy-Who-Lived, as though it were possible to consume a soul with vision, as though Harry were the answer to Artaud's dark fire. 


	2. Chapter 2

TITLE: Mary-Sue and the Bombastic Booty (2/?)   
  
AUTHOR NAME: Connor Coyne (mdunham2)   
  
AUTHOR EMAIL: vehiclecitykid@hotmail.com   
  
CATEGORY: Artsy-fartsy parody, dark humor   
  
KEYWORDS: Harry, Artaud, Weasley, fifth, ship   
  
RATING: PG-13   
  
SPOILERS: All the Books   
  
SUMMARY: A great many implausible ships. Poorly written. Really a shame. Yes, here it is: A new girl comes to Hogwarts called Mary-Sue and Harry falls in love with her. The situation is further complicated by the dark machinations of the new DADA teacher. Chaos. Plenty.   
  
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Artaud quotes taken from The Theater and its Double, translated by Mary Caroline Richards and published by Grove Press, and Antonin Artaud Selected Writings, translated by Helen Weaver and published by University of California Press. I would also like to apologize to William Shakespeare, Greek mythology, and major religions which, while part of the public domain, should probably have been treated with more respect. ;)   
  
AUTHOR' S NOTE: My name is Connor Coyne, but my EZboard login is mdunham2. This story is dedicated to posts 1 to 90 on the following Sugarquill thread: http://pub40.ezboard.com/fsugarquillfrm4.showMessage?topicID=675.topic   
  
Part One: HARRY POTTER AND THE PANDORA'S BOX or MARY-SUE ARRIVES   
  
CHAPTER TWO   
  
If Harry had returned to Hogwarts wishing for nothing but a little peace, he was certainly disappointed.   
  
The first day of classes was horrible.   
  
Misery couldn't wait until the first session, oh no, but announced her presence with loud cries at breakfast, "I'm here! I'm here!" like a drunk and tottering Dementor.   
  
Harry, Ron, and Hermione entered the Great Hall to confront a sight they had never expected to see. Dozens of Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, and *Gryffindor* boys and girls huddled around the Slytherin table, standing on their tiptoes or books or chairs to catch a better glimpse of the new girl, Mary-Sue Darkstar-Riddle. Seamus Finnigan was there, swaying drunkenly, and Dean Thomas, who grinned while absent-mindedly massaging a very annoyed looking Pansy Parkinson. Dennis Creevey sat on Colin's shoulders for a better look, and a black-eyed Neville Longbottom struggled desperately to escape from an irate Ginny. Only Justin Finch-Fletchley seemed not to notice.   
  
Mary-Sue herself was at the center of the table, her chair leaning back to rest soundly against the wall. She sat right in the crook of the chair, her legs extended and resting across Crabbe's thighs, while her head lay in Goyle's lap. Unlike the plain, black robes she had arrived in the night before, she now wore a pair of shocking pink bell-bottoms with translucent swirls and spirals cutting across the fabric (matched by the sleeves of her shirt) changing colors between yellow and blue, and her green midriff shirt had a pink star in the middle. She wore small earrings designed after the planet Saturn, complete down to the rings and liquid Hydrogen ocean.   
  
"She isn't Mary-Sue," gushed Ron in penitent awe. "She's Lisa-Frank!"   
  
But Mary-Sue also wore a serene smile, and her fair, slender arm trailed languidly up to run her fingers across a face... a familiar face...   
  
"Ack! Ack!" cried Harry in a voice that made Hermione and Ron think he was choking. But Harry found words to describe his anguish. "MALFOY!" he gagged.   
  
He was right. The Mudblood-hater himself lay across the table, facing the girl, and the sublime smile on his face with his pointed chin and slick, blond locks combined to form a picture of angelic bliss that had never before crossed the face of a Malfoy.   
  
"I hate her," said Hermione. "What a bitch."   
  
Harry fainted.   
  
***   
  
The Boy-Who-Lived awoke a short time later, to find himself propped up at the Gryffindor table with a spoonful of oatmeal hovering in the air before his mouth.   
  
"You have to eat, Harry," chided Hermione.   
  
Only a few minutes had passed, and the Gryffindor table had gradually repopulated as the boys and girls, graced by simple winks and passionate hugs from the stellar-elusive Mary-Sue, were placated and able to think again.   
  
"Wh-- what happened?" asked Harry, reluctantly poking at his oatmeal.   
  
"You passed out," said Hermione, an irritated frown on her face. "Her mother was a veela, you know."   
  
"Wh-- what?"   
  
"You heard me. Her mother was a veela. Betcha can't guess who her daddy is?"   
  
"Who's her daddy?"   
  
Hermione smiled, angstily.   
  
"Ron doesn't know who her daddy is."   
  
"Who is her daddy?" repeated Harry, confused.   
  
Hermione shrugged her shoulders.   
  
"Think about her last name, Harry," she said.   
  
'Darkstar-Riddle,' Harry thought. 'Riddle. Oh!'   
  
He scratched his head, wondering why he hadn't noticed before.   
  
But then again, she was so beautiful, so beautiful... rings of Saturn, pink star, green eyes, snakelike somehow.   
  
'The most beautiful girl ever!'   
  
***   
  
Breakfast didn't improve. Ron didn't return to the table until he'd waited in line with the Slytherins for a half hour, only to receive a breathy "pleased to meet you" from the new girl.   
  
"Great to see you again, Weasley," Draco had sneered, slapping Ron on the back, but for the first time, Ron hadn't noticed and hadn't cared.   
  
Hermione was so angry she'd left the table, and Ron, flustered and clueless as usual, had set off in pursuit of her.   
  
Harry was alone when he received his class schedule and noticed with curiosity that Defense Against the Dark Arts was his first class this year.   
  
The Gryffindors were to share this class with the Slytherins...   
  
***   
  
When Harry and Ron arrived at Artaud's class, Hermione was still indignant.   
  
"What are you so mad about?" asked Ron.   
  
"Nothing!" she exclaimed.   
  
"What are you doing?"   
  
"Nothing!" she replied, and then, forcing her frown into a malicious grin,   
  
"I'm writing Viktor. I'm asking him out again. Maybe I'll go visit him in Bulgaria."   
  
Ron went red in the face, but he rolled his eyes with an exaggerated motion.   
  
"Really," he said. "I don't know *what* you see in him."   
  
But Hermione went on writing.   
  
As Harry and Ron found themselves seats on the other side of the classroom, the assembled Gryffindors fell into a general hush.   
  
May-Sue had entered the classroom, followed by her retinue of Slytherins. They fell all over her; metaphorically, of course. Crabbe and Goyle, decked out in their finest robes, threw tulip petals at her feet, and Millicent Bulstrode followed quickly after, ardently tying Mary-Sue's wild tresses into intricate braids.   
  
But the focus in the room was about to shift...   
  
"Class... ... ..." came a low, quiet hiss, like a breath of hot wind, or like a furnace shuddering into life.   
  
The room fell into panic as the Slytherins scrambled to their seats. Only Mary-Sue was relaxed as she calmly walked to her chair, sat, kicked her feet up, and commenced filing her nails.   
  
"Harry," said Ron.   
  
"I am in love with her," said Harry suddenly.   
  
An awkward pause.   
  
"But she's a Slytherin!"   
  
"I don't care. I don't even care."   
  
The hiss passed through the room again, with a turbulence that almost laughed at them.   
  
This time Harry noticed.   
  
The dark room seemed to grow even dimmer, cooler, and then, gradually, and with an imperceptible increase in pressure, as though filled with a moist fog, settling like the tropical mists, the room warmed again.   
  
A figure sputtered into being, sitting at the desk.   
  
"Class," said Professor Artaud. He was smiling, a hideous, withered, toothless grin, that seemed frozen on his face.   
  
And then he froze.   
  
For several moments nobody realized what had happened, but as the temperature continued to shift both up and down, the apparition that was their new teacher stopped moving. He was stuck in space, neither blinking nor breathing, and the moment drew long as though time had stopped. Artaud was as still as a Muggle photograph.   
  
"What's goin --?" began a Slytherin girl, but Artaud erupted into a volcano of screams.   
  
"SILENCE SILENCE SILENCE!" he cried in deafening shrieks. "I DEMAND OF MY CLASS SILENCE!!!"   
  
And then he froze again.   
  
The girl stopped speaking and sat in her seat, shivering. Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The Gryffindors and Slytherins were almost as still as the ghost who, transfixed before them again, statue-like, glared out at his class with petrified, yet burning, eyes.   
  
Only Mary-Sue remained unperturbed, filing her nails, and then gracelessly untangling Millicent's failed braids.   
  
Moments passed.   
  
Minutes passed.   
  
These minutes stretched out, grew long, extended, distended, and the sweating students began to feel the weight and warmth building again. The hour dragged on in this manner as the new teacher continued to stare at his class.   
  
Ron showed Harry his Wizards' Watch, a gift from Hermione, and the glowing pixie within held up a placard reading 57%, indicating that the class was past halfway over, yet still nobody moved before the soundless, unblinking gaze of Professor Artaud.   
  
"This is worse than it was with Gilderoy!" Harry whispered to Ron, with a furtive glance toward Artaud.   
  
"Tell me about it. At least he was funny. This guy's just dead!" Harry nodded sleepily. Many of the other student had begun to drift off. Several heads had already collapsed onto the long table and the unflinching, unblinking Artaud didn't even seem to notice.   
  
And then Harry noticed someone was missing.   
  
"Where's Draco?" he whispered to Ron.   
  
Before Ron could say anything they were answered by a hiss directly in right in front of them.   
  
"Shhhhh!"   
  
It was Neville, who held his index finger to puckered lips, sweat pouring down his pale face.   
  
Artaud also noticed this.   
  
He whipped an ethereal wand from the folds of his ghostly robe and pointed it at Neville.   
  
"Muipo!" he cried, and Neville screamed as he began spinning in his seat, bones contorting and snapping, skin changing color. The class watched in stupefied horror as sparks flew from Neville's eyes and hair and his screams grew more hollow and guttural. And when Neville stopped spinning, something was different about him.   
  
This Neville was white and gray, with delicate feathers brushing back along his neck and face. This Neville had a long beak and piercing gray eyes. This Neville had feet painted blue, as if by malachite.   
  
"He's been turned into a blue-footed booby!" cried Seamus.   
  
"Squaa!" said Neville in a throaty chirp, hopped from the desk, and waddled out of the room.   
  
Artaud was restive no more, however. He floated up and down the room in a frenzy.   
  
"I demand SILENCE and I receive no SILENCE and all I ask for is SILENCE! And Mister Harry Potter," the ghost stopped before Harry's desk and looked him straight in the eye. Harry shrank before those twin dark tunnels. "Shall it be with you as it was with Abelard? Shall it? I say that 'life dwindled before his eyes. Whole regions of his brain rotted. Yes, the phenomenon was known, but even so it was not simple. Abelard did not present his state as a discovery.'"   
  
And the ghost whisked on, leaving Harry in a state of suspended shock, yet Artaud ranted on:   
  
"'All the mouths of dead males," he said, "laugh at the risk of their teeth, through the arcade of their virgin teeth or through teeth coated with hunger and plated with filth, like the armature of Abelard's mind.' That is a quote, yes? Me. 1925. Make a note of that. 1925. 1295. What is the difference? My brain has exploded a billion times, but what does that really mean? What tincture? What esophagus? What excrement?" Artaud mused on this for a moment, smiling.   
  
"And one of you will meddle where he or she does not belong, and one of you will die as a result. Know this."   
  
***   
  
Artaud's ranting continued through the rest of class, until he suddenly froze again and, with an agonizing slowness, faded away.   
  
When Ron looked at his watch, the very bored pixie gestured to a discarded placard reading 107%... they were late to their Herbology class.   
  
As Ron and Harry began gathering their books, however, Mary-Sue walked to the front of the class, trailed slightly by a Slytherin girl... the same girl Artaud had screamed at earlier.   
  
Mary-Sue gleamed at the class, cheerfully, as though she had been completely unaware of the agonizingly slow class, Artaud's rants, or Neville's transfiguration into a blue-footed booby.   
  
"This," said Mary-Sue, gesturing to the slight, timid-looking girl at her side, "is Appolonia Moonwhisp. She is my best friend here. If you have any questions for me, please ask her first. I am getting too much attention these days, and it puts a stress on both my schedule and my composure. This is my solution."   
  
Appolonia smiled shyly, and waved a little wave to the class.   
  
Nobody stirred until Mary-Sue had packed her belongings and walked from the classroom. The other Slytherins had quickly knotted into a tight group. As Harry walked from the classroom, he overheard Goyle speaking.   
  
"Where's Draco?"   
  
"He's in the boy's bathroom crying," explained Pansy.   
  
"Whyyyyy?" asked Crabbe.   
  
"Because Mary-Sue was given his position as Seeker of the Quidditch team."   
  
"About time!" Ron shouted with glee, giving Harry a shove as they ran from the classroom, Slytherins in pursuit.   
  
***   
  
In the upcoming days Harry's day wasn't any easier.   
  
The first big event of the year was the Gryffindor Quidditch match against Slytherin.   
  
No ony ha May-Sue replased Daco as te sekker of the Slythin quidich teem, but she was the bast Siker he'd ever seeen az wel. Batter thin e Mugle kud have evver be!   
  
'Viktor Krum couldn't hold a candle to this girl!' Harry thought as she swept under his Firebolt, whipped around him in a spiral for seconds, then pulled up abruptly, holding the quivering snitch in the pearly toes of her right foot.   
  
The bell rang.   
  
Harry swore.   
  
At game's end, the score was Slytherin 150, Gryffindor 0.   
  
***   
  
Hermione still wasn't speaking to Ron, and her mood only became fouler when she read a Rita Skeeter article in Witches' Weekly describing Viktor Krum's lurid entanglements with a Mackled Malaclaw.   
  
***   
  
To everyone's horror, not only had Neville failed to revert back to human form, but he was much more competent as a blue-footed booby than he had ever been as a boy.   
  
"I have to admit," said Snape one day, wrinkling his nose in such distaste he looked like he'd been standing in a particularly foul outhouse, "Neville, this is one of the most effective coitumtriste potions I've ever seen..."   
  
"Squaa!" yelped Neville in gratitude.   
  
"May... I... retain some of your mixture for personal use?" asked Snape with a frown.   
  
Neville bobbed his thin head up and down.   
  
Ginny, of course, was displeased, and began pining for Harry again.   
  
***   
  
On other sides, Dumbledore had seemed distant all year, Hagrid was downright surly to Harry, and Sirius hadn't even written a letter.   
  
At night, in his four-poster, Harry closed his eyes and struggled to remember happier days, when Hogwarts had been a place of joy for him.   
  
'What is happening?' he thought to himself. 'I knew it was going to be hard, because Voldemort's come back, and after last year... the Triwizard tournament, and Cedric, and Moody. And I expected death-eaters, dark magic, serpents, Slytherins, or even me riding into the sunset with the Order of the Phoenix, hand in hand with Ginny, or Cho, or Hermione, or Draco... um, depending on who you ask... but now! What is happening now I cannot understand. It's like Chaos theory or the Delta-Epsilon theorem. It's like the people I've always placed the most trust in are turning their backs on me. It's like everything is totally out of synch. And nobody else seems to notice.'   
  
Unbidden, one of Artaud's rants flew through Harry's mind: 'When confronting the Dark Arts you have structure your answer as an execution of cruelty. And by cruelty I do not mean that you subject your opponent to undue torment, but only that you apply the necessary torment rigorously. It is necessary to execute your intentions with complete resolve. Your resolve is your cruelty. Your cruelty is your intention.'   
  
'If I only knew what my intentions were!' thought Harry desperately. 'I wish I knew what I wanted here!'   
  
"I can tell you what you want," a voice dropped, and the drop was as soft as the wind, and hushed like an echo.   
  
Harry opened his eyes. In the darkness before him hung a dim light and the dim lightened, and the light frowned, though sadly, and somehow bound tightly upward, proud and glowing, and shaking with a quiet resolve.   
  
It was Professor Artaud. 


	3. Chapter 3

TITLE: Mary-Sue and the Bombastic Booty (3/?)   
  
AUTHOR NAME: Connor Coyne (mdunham2)   
  
AUTHOR EMAIL: vehiclecitykid@hotmail.com   
  
CATEGORY: Artsy-fartsy parody, dark humor   
  
KEYWORDS: Harry, Artaud, Weasley, fifth, ship   
  
SPOILERS: All the Books   
  
RATING: PG-13   
  
SUMMARY: A great many implausible ships. Poorly written. Really a shame. Yes, here it is: A new girl comes to Hogwarts called Mary-Sue and Harry falls in love with her. The situation is further complicated by the dark machinations of the new DADA teacher. Chaos. Plenty.   
  
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. In this chapter I also should apologize to SCUSA and Fictionalley Park for making a mockery of their ships, though this will by no means improve as the story continues. Also, my condolences to Mr. Ransom, who should've offered his condolences to Mr. Tennyson, but didn't. But what else do we expect from English writers and American critics?   
  
AUTHOR' S NOTE: As before. Be aware that this chapter is slightly more "serious" than the first two. That's okay, though. I'm in the operating room with the patient, and we'll let you know when the antidote kicks in.   
  
Part One: HARRY POTTER AND THE PANDORA'S BOX or MARY-SUE ARRIVES   
  
CHAPTER THREE   
  
For Harry Potter, life was a dream!   
  
He knew this because he was dizzy... too many Gin N' Tonics. Too many Ron Cokes.   
  
He knew this because as he walked through the dark, hushed corridors of Hogwarts, his invisibility cloak pulled low over his eyes, he had visions. A bludger chased a desperate Quaffle along the rafters, but the Quaffle escaped, only to be chased down by another Quaffle Somewhere below the crashing of the frantic quidditch balls, the fiery torches glittered an icy blue, and then shattered into jagged shards that shot splinters of lurid illumination into the darkness. And around, all around, Harry heard a whirring, an incessant whirring, like murdering beeves, like too many whispers in a crowded room.   
  
"I'm dreaming," he said to himself.   
  
"You are not dreaming," said Artaud, drifting alongside Harry. "You hear what others cannot. What you hear is the collision of future events."   
  
"Oh, I see," snapped Harry sarcastically.   
  
He couldn't remember how Artaud had convinced him to follow the ghostly DADA teacher into the nighttime depths of Hogwarts. 'It wasn't magic. I'm just so used to doing reckless things it comes naturally,' Harry thought.   
  
But there was a reason he remembered quite clearly.   
  
"I can give you the key to Mary-Sue's heart," Artaud had hissed, floating in the darkness of the Gryffindor boy's dormitory.   
  
"What?" Harry had asked.   
  
"I can give it to you, and you will have her heart... with no force, no coercion. She will give it to you of her own free will, and together you will drive off Voldemort and the magic world will enter a new age of peace."   
  
"How is that going to happen?"   
  
"Follow me."   
  
So Harry had slipped out of bed and, not bothering to change out of his pajamas, but stopping only to grab his invisibility cloak, had followed Professor Artaud from the bedroom.   
  
"So what is this key, and how are we going to defeat Voldemort?" asked Harry as they slipped by the Fat Lady.   
  
"The key, young Harry, is you, and the trick is the Pandora's Box. Mary-Sue will be very close to you, very important, you see, but you must discover that in your own way and time."   
  
"Make sense, please."   
  
"Harry Potter, do you not think it strange that I am here, that I, I should come to Hogwarts after a long and blistering life and an equally long and blistering death?"   
  
"I don't know. I guess I don't know anything about you."   
  
"Nobody does. Even myself. Even Dumbledore knows little about me, only that Voldemort has fear of me, mortal fear, and that my presence at Hogwarts, the presence of a mere ghost, is a greater threat than the Ministry, than Dumbledore, than ten thousand Aurors."   
  
"What sort of a threat are you?"   
  
"You're going to find that out tonight, Harry. You're going to learn very soon."   
  
They had come to one of the stairways descending to the fifth floor, and Harry, expecting to be led into one of the darker, more remote regions of the castle, was shocked when Artaud abruptly stopped drifting forward to hover just above a stair. It was the same stair, Harry noted, he had found himself stuck in a year earlier when returning from the Prefects' Bathroom, and from which he and Ron had rescued Neville numerous times.   
  
"What now?" asked Harry. "Where do we go now?"   
  
"Down there," said Artaud, his voice shaking excitedly, and he pointed to the step.   
  
"Are you crazy?!"   
  
"You know the spell..."   
  
Wondering whether Artaud had always been mad, or whether he'd acquired his dementia since becoming a ghost, Harry removed his wand and pointed it at the floorboard.   
  
"Alohomora!"   
  
Nothing happened.   
  
"It's working," said Artaud. "Make it reveal itself."   
  
"Appareo!"   
  
The wood began to shimmer as if it were a mirage, and then, blurring and fading, disappeared to reveal an empty space.   
  
Harry was stunned, but Artaud appeared to have expected this.   
  
"Very good," he said, "but you are not two-dimensional, so I suggest you make the entrance a little larger."   
  
"Engorgio..." murmured Harry, flicking his wand, and before his eyes, the dark entrance swelled.   
  
"Shall we?" asked the ghost.   
  
"We're going in there?"   
  
"It's perfectly safe. Nobody's gone down there since this castle was built, I can assure you."   
  
"What is down there?"   
  
"A test, Harry... and a great treasure."   
  
Harry stepped into the hole.   
  
***   
  
Falling. He seemed to fall a long time, and as he did so, he saw visions, images flitting before his face. Many were the same images he had seen in his earlier walk with the professor: bludgers and Quaffle and blue flames. Others surprised him, like a wolf hungrily devouring a blinding bright light, or Justin Finch-Fletchley, sitting atop a gilt gold throne, grinning ferociously. Finally, slowed in his fall by a multitude of rising feathers shed by a teeming crowd of owls, Harry came to rest, as he had expected, in a dark cave, deep in the bowels of Hogwarts.   
  
Moments later Artaud arrived, gliding downward as he controlled his own descent. Ghosts can do that. It's one of the perks of being dead.   
  
"Where are we?" asked Harry.   
  
Ignoring his question, Artaud began gliding animatedly around the boy.   
  
"Now Harry, you will go through a door behind you, and you will face the Bildungsroman, and you shall succeed, pass into the third chamber, select the correct mirror, pass through it, and open the Pandora's box."   
  
"Wait! Wait! Pandora's box? Correct mirror? Bildungsroman?! What is this, Artaud? What's going on."   
  
"Listen to me Harry, we have to hurry, so I will explain quickly. Do you believe in alternate universes? Answer me not! I can assure you in all certainty that they do exist. Our whole world is its own bubble, but there are millions of bubbles. Would you believe me if I told you that your life is scrutinized by millions of Muggle eyes? Would you believe me if I told you that your life-story is rewritten a hundred-thousand times by ten-thousand authors? We are not so alone as we think we are. None of us are alone," and at this, Artaud's eyes flicked upward, into the dark, as though anticipating the fall of a great, invisible weight.   
  
The ghost shuddered, but continued.   
  
"Voldemort fears me because I could have killed him as he once tried to kill you. I was at the height of my power when Voldemort was a child. We might be said to have similarities, Voldemort and I. We were both half-bloods, orphans, raised by Muggles. I arrived in various mental institutions, while he went to an orphanage. No doubt this is familiar to you, even boring. Voldemort had the good fortune to learn of his abilities. My powers were hidden from me, locked into my brain, destroying me from the inside out. And it haunted me my whole life long, and finally killed me. I stand before you now.   
  
"Yes, I could have killed Voldemort, and his mother would not have been there to protect him. I am not a vindictive man, Harry, no. I've always had hunger, but I am not cruel and I am not evil. I exist to exalt, and that is why I need your help.   
  
"You want to destroy Voldemort? You want to unlock his power? You want to possess Mary-Sue, body and soul with all her heart and all your passion? Then you must open the Pandora's box! That will shatter the bubble, and let fictional worlds come flooding in. Do you understand?"   
  
"Why me?" asked Harry.   
  
"Why you! Why me? Why Voldemort? Because we can alter time, Harry!"   
  
At this, Artaud frantically drew his wand and Harry, alarmed, took a step back.   
  
"Don't be afraid," said the ghost. "I will not hurt you. Tell me: do you find this wand striking?"   
  
For the first time Harry took a close look at Artaud's wand. It was certainly one of the clumsiest he'd ever seen, and he realized the ghost must have had excellent skill to strike Neville with a spell from such a wand. It was a stick, barely six inches long, of plywood that had been cut to a point, and glued together in two places.   
  
"I see," Harry said. "It's not much of a wand."   
  
"Yes. Well, it wasn't manufactured by one who knew anything about wands in particular. I found myself constructing this... piece..." Artaud glanced at the wand contemptuously, "in the final hours of my life. You can barely call it a wand, admittedly. Except, what should I find for my wand, in the very last moments before drifting off, but a feather. A very special feather."   
  
"Phoenix!"   
  
"Indeed."   
  
"The only phoenix feather wands are--"   
  
"Yourself and Voldemort? That's not true in fact. The phoenix rises from its ashes, transfixes death and petrifies it. You know that was Voldemort's experience, for 'He-Who-Must-Go-Nameless' has again risen from his ashes. I defeated death myself, and here I am. You will find among the ghosts in the wizarding world, odds are, they had phoenix feathers in their wands. But I didn't drag you down here, Harry to talk metaphysics or semiotics of mythology. I want you to open that box! It impinges time, you know, it shatters barriers, and almost nobody else can do it. I'd do it myself, but I'm a ghost. I cannot open a box."   
  
"Could Mary-Sue do it?" asked Harry.   
  
"Mary-Sue cannot see me!" snarled Artaud. "Is this a waste of my time, Harry? Go through that door, and confront the Bildungsroman. Pass through the mirror and open the box. You alone are master of this."   
  
Harry drew his own wand. Artaud's eyes were intent on the Boy-Who-Lived.   
  
Harry waited. He doubted.   
  
'This is wrong,' he thought. 'Or if this is right, I am doing it for the wrong reasons. Will that make all the difference?'   
  
His wand glimmered in the soft glow given by Artaud's astral presence.   
  
Holly.   
  
Phoenix feather.   
  
Eleven inches.   
  
Supple.   
  
And then he imagined Mary-Sue, and her picture dispelled bludgers and Quaffles, pumpkins and feathers, nimbi and texti, blackwood greenstones, the perennial luna, the old-tome-of-agèd-chronicles-bound-in-the-cured-hide-of-some-unforuntate-lardass-beastssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss. No. It was Mary-Sue! Lovely!Mary-Sue, divine!Mary-Sue with her coiling locks and heavenly frocks and alabaster hands and eyesinelectricshadeoslightning.   
  
Mary-Sue Darkstar-Riddle!   
  
Harry turned his back on Artaud, slipped under his invisibility cloak, found the door, passed through. 


	4. Chapter 4

TITLE: Mary-Sue and the Bombastic Booty (4/?)   
  
AUTHOR NAME: Connor Coyne (mdunham2)   
  
AUTHOR EMAIL: vehiclecitykid@hotmail.com   
  
CATEGORY: Artsy-fartsy parody, dark humor   
  
KEYWORDS: Harry, Artaud, Weasley, fifth, ship   
  
SPOILERS: All the books   
  
RATING: PG-13   
  
SUMMARY: A great many implausible ships. Poorly written. Really a shame. Yes, here it is: A new girl comes to Hogwarts called Mary-Sue and Harry falls in love with her. The situation is further complicated by the dark machinations of the new DADA teacher. Chaos. Plenty.   
  
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. This chapter wants to apologize to William Shakespeare and JKR for her favorite chapter in Book 1.   
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Ditto last.   
  
Part One: HARRY POTTER AND THE PANDORA'S BOX or MARY-SUE ARRIVES   
  
CHAPTER FOUR   
  
The door shut behind Harry with a terrible creak, enclosing him in darkness.   
  
'Lumos,' he said, and the tip of his wand flickered into light. The muted glimmering revealed a vast, windy, stone room, simply designed with a twenty foot ceiling and another door in the far wall, fifty or sixty feet away.   
  
"Hello?" Harry called, and his voice bounced up and down the hall, multiplied and echoed back to him over and over and over again.   
  
He realized he should have asked Artaud what a Bildungsroman was *before* setting off to confront one.   
  
For several moments, Harry stood, peering into the obscure reaches of the room, but nothing moved except the sudden gusts of wind that blew through and scattered his hair. Stepping gingerly, Harry ventured into the room. Each step was a painful anxiety, but the floor was firm and there were no holes or ornaments in the walls or ceiling for booby traps. Only the curious wind served to unnerve him; sneaking around him, blowing between his legs or up along his shoulders, snapping at his wand, and whistling in his ears. When Harry reached the center of the room he stopped to consider the stability of the ceiling. At that moment the wind picked up in intensity, twisting around him, shrieking.   
  
"What are you?!" called out Harry, pointing his wand into empty space.   
  
Nothing.   
  
The room was as empty as ever, and quiet except for the languid drift of air, the displacement of void and vacuum.   
  
Harry was sweating. The corners of the room seemed to recede, but he knew it was all in his head. His eyes conjured mirages... he was imagining the wind, the wind as a person.   
  
Gradually the sound of movement gathered at the far end of the hall and assembled, a roaring mass. Harry knelt, wand in front of him, and braced himself against something he felt rather than saw coming.   
  
With an explosive "pop!" a sudden gust burst toward him. Harry heard shrieking in his ears, around his body, and his eyes watered. His hair pulled back to reveal his scar. The wind hit him full in the chest and flung him back. He hit the floor hard, unable to breathe, and his wand slid out of his hand and away from him. Wheezing, he turned onto his stomach and crawled toward the wand as quickly as he could, its constant light a beacon in the dimming hurricane that had surrounded him. He had ten feet to go.   
  
Six.   
  
Four.   
  
He could almost reach it.   
  
Two.   
  
Harry grasped his wand and flipped over to face the center of the room. But the wind had stopped.   
  
There, in the middle of the room, tall, composed, and milk white, stood the softly-glowing Bildungsroman.   
  
Harry had never seen a Bildungsroman before, but somehow he had expected something more fearsome and monstrous, like a dragon or basilisk. This Bildungsroman was vaguely human in shape.   
  
"Can you speak?" Harry asked, regaining his breath.   
  
The figure nodded.   
  
"I need to get past you."   
  
The Bildungsroman shook its head, sad looking.   
  
'How can I tell it's sad?' Harry thought.   
  
"Listen to me," said the Bildungsroman.   
  
"Okay," said Harry.   
  
"The time has come when I must surrender to painful death, and darkness of limbo!"   
  
"Um. I'm sorry..."   
  
"Don't grieve for me, but listen well to me."   
  
"Well, with this echo I am bound to hear."   
  
"And to divide, like Mitosis, when you hear."   
  
"What?"   
  
"I am your father's spirit;  
  
Curs'd by night to guard the Pandora's box,   
  
And during the day to spin in mad limbo   
  
'Til all my mistakes and all my errors   
  
Are blown and swept away. But I cannot speak   
  
Of Limbo but hosted by The Dark Arts,   
  
(Not Riddikulus) and there my dark angst   
  
Would shiver your spine; freeze your virgin blood,   
  
Make your two eyes, like stars, supernova,   
  
Your hair to be lifted, blown full aside   
  
And every messy strand to stand on end,   
  
Scar burning with the light of the dogstar:   
  
But this great pain is not for you 'til dead,   
  
My living, scarrèd son, so listen to me   
  
If you ever missed your dearest Father!"  
  
"My goodness!" exclaimed, Harry, petrified.   
  
"Avenge me against that betraying bitch!"   
  
"Betraying?!"   
  
"Betrayal is wrong in any situation.   
  
But this wrong: strange and unnatural!"   
  
"Hurry and tell me, dad, so that I may,   
  
Like a hotheaded fifteen-year-old boy,  
  
Rush into my revenge!"   
  
('Now what on earth made me say that?' Harry thought.)   
  
"You make me proud;  
  
You'd have to be as dense as Crabbe or Goyle   
  
Sleeping through his Transfiguration class,  
  
To not be angry now. Now, Harry, hear:   
  
You know that, at home in Nineteen-Eighty,  
  
A serpent stung me, so that Voldemort,   
  
Bearing the wand enacting my execution   
  
Assumed its credit: but know, Harry, my son,   
  
The serpent that stung me and took my life  
  
Is Lily's daughter."   
  
"Oh my god. My heart. My sister?!"   
  
"Yes. My rival, my constant opponent,   
  
Made her pity him with treacherous tricks --   
  
His evil cunning, begun with pity,  
  
Ended with seduction - brought to his side   
  
As his girlfriend the heart of my future:  
  
Oh, Harry! What a falling out there was!   
  
For I, who loved her at the first and last   
  
And said to her 'I have loved only you,'   
  
Couldn't believe that prior to me she   
  
Had chosen that git!   
  
Her virtue, before my chance, met his vice,   
  
And they had a daughter: a radiant angel;   
  
But, raised by him when Lily married me,   
  
Hated her own mother!"   
  
The Bildungsroman stopped speaking for a moment. He cried, and as his tears blew down against the ground, they became grains of dust that whipped out from the emanating breeze. The creature stopped, strained his head upward, trying to breathe deep, but wheezing pitifully.   
  
"But shhh!" it said. "I think I scent dew condensation...   
  
I must be brief. Weeding in my garden,   
  
The pure joy of the October twilight,   
  
I didn't see the girl with You-Know-Who,   
  
And holding his yew phoenix feather wand   
  
Cried "Avada Kedavra," whose effect   
  
Is deleterious to means of breath   
  
And quick as quicksilver it shuttered up   
  
My veins and blood and brain, so that my soul,   
  
Locked in place, my voice eclips'd, my marrow chill,  
  
Frozen shut in that silent moment,   
  
Eyes wide, lungs stilled, heart unbeating she   
  
Rose over my life and snuffed it out,   
  
Like a candle."   
  
The Bildungsroman had risen into the air and, while rising, his voice has taken on the harsh groan of a gale. But now, as though self-conscious of his outburst, he gently descended, and his words rustled with the tugging of the twilit wind in the linden leaves.   
  
"This is how, weeding, by wife's daughter's wand:  
  
My life, my friends, my wife: a moment gone,   
  
Killed even with the turnips in my hand;  
  
Unwashed, unclean; no kiss goodbye for me.   
  
No "love you, Lily!" No "please, spare my wife!"   
  
But irrevocably dead in the garden.   
  
So sad... so sad... so... very sad.   
  
If you are my son, please! Don't allow this!   
  
Don't let your mother's bastard daughter,   
  
Who killed your father and watched her mother die   
  
Survive and thrive at Lord Voldemort's side!  
  
For not only my heart, but for your mother's,   
  
Who was twice tricked and betrayed that day,  
  
Please avenge us."   
  
In that moment, Harry saw it all. He had experienced a genuine moment of time travel with Hermione, when they used her Time-Turner to rescue Buckbeak and Sirius, and this was the same feeling. With bits of Bildungsroman dust floating in the air, he saw the scene described. A man in his mid-twenties, dirt-stained, and wearing glasses pulled roots from the black peat. As the sun set in a glowing fire of amber, two figures advanced on the man: one small, stepping lightly, and another tall and gaunt, engulfed in his dark robes. The moment was vividly intense. Harry felt the warm glance of the sun on his face, the cool, wet stain of dew on his feet, and knew that in moments, this man, his father, would be dead.   
  
And it faded a little, as the Bildungsroman spoke.   
  
"I must bid you farewell.  
  
The sun is now cresting over the trees   
  
And blows warm futility in our direction.   
  
Goodbye. Goodbye. Harry: remember me."   
  
James Potter... the Bildungsroman... had faded away.   
  
Harry... was crushed.   
  
Harry was shattered.   
  
Harry would have rather faced a dragon, *or* a basilisk, than this creature who claimed to be his father and told him about his half-sister.   
  
'Do I really have a half-sister? Is she out there... somewhere? In the world? And did she kill my father? Did she help Voldemort kill my mother? ... Her mother?'   
  
The thought was horrible to Harry. More horrible than Malfoys' malice. More horrible than Pettigrew's betrayal. More horrible than Voldemort himself. How could this have happened?   
  
How could a world exist that allowed such things to happen?   
  
'Was Artaud right?' Harry wondered. 'Will the Pandora's box change everything?' And then he repeated the thought to himself, but changed: 'I will *will* the Pandora's box to change everything!'   
  
Grimly, Harry held his wand aloft, and strode toward the far wall of the second chamber, where he found a plain, oak door. He held up his wand.   
  
"Alohomora!" he cried.   
  
Nothing happened.   
  
The door hadn't been locked.   
  
Surprised at this, Harry twisted the brass handle, and with a tired squeak, the door opened.   
  
***   
  
The third chamber was much smaller than the first two. In fact, the room felt more like a closet than anything. The space was circular, about twelve or fourteen feet across, and it rose to a peak in a dome shape, ten feet up. Ducking through the door, Harry immediately found what he was looking for.   
  
Three mirrors.   
  
One of these, he knew immediately:   
  
A splendid mirror with a baroque design, towering so high the gold frame leaned heavily into the room, and propped up on two clawed feet, reading "Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi."   
  
A second mirror, quite small, only large enough to be held up to one's face, was set in a cherrywood frame and leaned up against the wall. This mirror also bore an inscription: "Ytoob dev arcs nois sapru oyt ubs elimsru oyt on wohsi."   
  
Harry, knowing that the first mirror was trouble, and guessing that the second would be as well, gingerly stepped past them to the wall, where he found a third mirror. This was very roughhewn, like scratched quartz, and directly mounted into the stony wall. Like the others, the third mirror bore an inscription: "Xob sarod nap otya weht sei lemh guorht tube cafruoy yl no wohsi."   
  
'This is the correct mirror,' Harry deduced and, still shaken from his last encounter, raised his wand over his head.   
  
He brought it down.   
  
"Diffindospeculum!" he cried, and with a crack and sharp shattering, and a sudden diffusion on the air that smelt like a solution of ice shards and soot, the mirror tore open and flapped forward, like a page ripped halfway from a book.   
  
The opening was black and loomed up in front of Harry. He stepped through the mirror and into the final chamber.   
  
***   
  
This room was even darker and smaller than the last, and absolutely silent.   
  
Harry was starting to have doubts, starting to lose his resolve, to wonder if everything the Bildungsroman had said was true, and even if Artaud could be trusted. While he stood and hesitated, his eyes gradually came to focus on the dark. The ceiling was very low; scarcely six feet high, and the room seemed to be cubical. There, in the dusty center, lay what appeared to be a plain, unmarked box, simple and wooden, with tiny hinges gripping a splintered lid, and a tiny hook holding it shut.   
  
'This is the moment,' Harry thought, 'and now I decide.'   
  
He paused.   
  
There was a sound after all... a deep dark sonorous throbbing somewhere deep within the walls.   
  
No.   
  
Deep inside.   
  
Harry realized he was hearing his own heartbeat, so complete was the silence.   
  
'Now I decide. Now I decide.' The question repeated over and over in his head, with increasing intensity. 'Maybe I can make the silence ring with my thoughts,' he thought. 'Or maybe not.'   
  
Beat.   
  
Beat.   
  
Beat.   
  
Beat.   
  
And then he thought:   
  
'If I don't do this now, I'll lose my resolve, and lose everything I've worked for.'   
  
So Harry reached out, unclasped the glinting hook, and flipped the lid of the Pandora's Box. 


	5. Chapter 5

TITLE: Mary-Sue and the Bombastic Booty (5/?)  
  
AUTHOR NAME: Connor Coyne (mdunham2)   
  
AUTHOR EMAIL: vehiclecitykid@hotmail.com   
  
CATEGORY: Artsy-fartsy parody, dark humor   
  
KEYWORDS: Harry, Artaud, Weasley, fifth, ship   
  
SPOILERS: All the books   
  
RATING: R (sorry, just this chapter)   
  
SUMMARY: A great many implausible ships. Poorly written. Really a shame. Yes, here it is: A new girl comes to Hogwarts called Mary-Sue and Harry falls in love with her. The situation is further complicated by the dark machinations of the new DADA teacher. Chaos. Plenty.   
  
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Also, I hate to give credit where credit isn't due, especially where writing is concerned, but: All lyrics are from the song "One Kiss From You" (Lunt) released on Britney Spears, "Oops, I Did It Again," BMG/Jive/Silvertone 2000. This chapter heartily apologizes to everyone who reads it.   
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Preparing to move into phase two of monumental chaos. As you've gathered, many thanks to the pet-peeves Sugarquill thread. I'd also like to thank many writers at ff.net for the next section, but that would be a trifle cruel.   
  
Concluding   
  
Part One: HARRY POTTER AND THE PANDORA'S BOX or MARY-SUE ARRIVES   
  
we have...   
  
CHAPTER FIVE   
  
Harry's heart was in his feet as he walked up through the corridors of Hogwarts. He could tell because his circulation was terrible; he kept shivering and wringing his hands to keep them warm. That, and a dull depression slowly slithered over his psyche, snuffing out his hopes one by one like so many half-extinguished candles.   
  
'Yes,' Harry thought, 'I've really done it now. Broken the bubble, as Artaud said.'   
  
He was, actually, quite puzzled at what he had 'done.' When he had opened the Pandora's box, nothing happened. The room had remained empty and quiet, and as he strained to see in the darkness, Harry realized that there was nothing in the box whatsoever.   
  
Still, as he had walked back through the third and second chambers, Harry realized something *had* changed, though he couldn't think what. It was almost as though a needle had suddenly dropped onto the world, causing a displacement of matter, of the center of gravity, and this would send everything spinning out of control. These images, of course, reminded him of his conversation with Artaud and the risks of 'breaking bubbles.'   
  
'Are there really millions of Muggle eyes watching me?' Harry wondered. 'Is my story really rewritten ten-thousand times?'   
  
When he had returned to the first chamber, Artaud was gone. Instead, a silvery ladder had risen into the darkness and, after climbing for what seemed like an eternity, Harry stood on the landing again. He had cast spells to shrink and hide the secret entrance and glumly set off toward the boys' dormitory.   
  
'The voices are gone,' he mused, as he walked along. 'No more cold candles, no more wolves and stars, bludgers and Quaffles. No more Justin on a throne, thank God.'   
  
And still everything seemed *not* *quite* *right*. More than ever the nighttime silence was oppressive, and Harry found himself hurrying toward his dormitory.   
  
"Things are wrong in here. I've messed things up, and what is Artaud up to, and what can I do now to get Mary-Sue to notice me?"   
  
Harry's angst was so heavy, and he groaned so under the burden, that he almost missed the voices coming from behind the cracked stone wall, guarded by a frowning gargoyle.   
  
Harry knew this was the entrance to Dumbledore's office. Somewhere, up the spiral staircase and through the oak door, came the dim murmur of the Headmaster's voice, doubtlessly in council with a staff member or someone from the Ministry of Magic about the threat of the newly risen Dark Lord.   
  
Harry's guilt, with the scorn of an insulted Hippogriff, turned on him and nipped him sharply in the temple.   
  
"Ow!" cried Harry, reaching for his head, but accidentally clasping his heart instead.   
  
'This is too much,' he thought. 'I can't go on like this. I'll tell Dumbledore. I'll tell him everything. About Artaud and the phoenix feathers... about the secret chambers and the Bildungsroman and the Pandora's Box... about my stepsister, and even about Mary-Sue. I can't go on like this: I have to tell him.'   
  
And even while these thoughts ran through his head, Harry's hand absently drifted to his pocket, which was suddenly heavy with a set of keys and several neatly folded letters.   
  
"Hello," he said, aloud. "What's this?"   
  
The key ring was heavy and shiny brass with a red tassel, and he quickly recognized the twelve or thirteen keys as fitting in the Gryffindor portraits, common room entrances, closets, larders, pantries, and dormitories.   
  
Almost as puzzling were the letters. For example, in the first, red ink on a gold sheet of parchment read:   
  
Dear Mr. Potter,   
  
Thank you once again for accepting the position as Prefect of Gryffindor House.   
  
You will find just below a list of rooms in the Gryffindor area. Your keys provide you with access to all of these rooms.   
  
You will also find, following, a list of passwords to all professor and staff offices. Please use these sparingly, and make sure to close all doors behind you.   
  
Sincerely,   
  
Minerva McGonagall   
  
Now Harry was definitely puzzled. He doubted he could've been made into a prefect and forgotten or not noticed for weeks. In fact, he quite clearly remembered someone else leading the first-years through Hogwarts, telling them the passwords... or did he? 'Was it really me?' he thought. But Harry shook his head. 'Impossible!' He wasn't nearly qualified enough. Harry had his own problems to look after, and McGonagall certainly didn't consider him to be the most responsible fifth year student in Gryffindor. If Hermione hadn't been chosen, why on Earth would he?   
  
Still, Harry couldn't argue with the letter in his hand, so distinctly written in McGonagall's hand. Nor could he dismiss the heavy ring of keys in his hand.   
  
Baffled, but still resolved to speak with Dumbledore, Harry looked down the list of passwords for 'Headmaster's Office,' recited the words 'Nik'l Nip' and watched as the gargoyle stepped aside and the wall opened.   
  
***   
  
The other side of the wall was dark, and Harry had to maneuver carefully to make his way through the opening and onto the spiral staircase, humming away as it rose like an escalator. In moments, Harry stood at the top, squinting to make out the brass Griffin knocker on the oak office door. He had almost reached out to knock when he heard an unexpected voice from within.   
  
'It's Snape,' Harry realized.   
  
Curious what they could be talking about at such an hour, Harry put his ear to the door.   
  
"It's quite impossible," Dumbledore was saying. "Severus, I can hardly believe what I am hearing. And from you of all people." "All the same," came Snape's silky, derisive response, "I have to ask you to respect my wishes. If I return to Voldemort... if I am to enter his ranks a third time, and risk my neck a third time, why... what I tell you now could be regarded as my last will and testament."   
  
There was a long silence, and Harry held his breath. Then, a low moaning began, a soft groan, sad and dripping like greasy water, not unlike the mating call of the sea lions Harry had once heard at the London zoo.   
  
"I'm dreaming of one kiss from you   
  
A love long and true and   
  
We'll go on and on and..."   
  
It was Snape... singing!   
  
To DUMBLEDORE!!!   
  
Harry put his hand to his mouth in horror to keep from crying out. But the surprise only intensified as a new sound joined the keening of the lanky potions master. He was joined by a synthetic popping and strumming... several beats played in sharp succession, followed by a strange whistle.   
  
Unable to resist, Harry put his eye to the keyhole and peered into the Headmaster's office.   
  
Dumbledore stood against the wall, face pale, eyes wide, hands to his face. Snape, on the other hand, tangled in his robes and some strange tight black trousers, knelt over a keyboard device from which the electronic beats emanated. The Pensieve had been placed on the desk, but instead of sitting still, it emitted lights rapidly changing from hot pink to tropical orange to sky blue to striking violet, painting the whole room in a never ending cycle of hellish color. Harry's eyes strayed upward, and he saw the worst: three birds; a large snowy owl, a small young barn owl, and Fawkes all had green and white   
  
cords around their necks. The cords trailed down and whenever, on the beat, Snape gave a tug, the creatures hooted, chirped, and whistled in a quivering melody that augmented Snape's already shaky baritone.   
  
The potions master hesitated a moment, his face tight as if he'd just eaten a lemon, emotion and sweat splayed across his face; "yea-y-oooh...yea," he cried before continuing:   
  
"I don't wanna hear that I'm too young   
  
To know it's love that makes me feel this way   
  
'Cause I don't have to feel the heat of the sun   
  
To know it's shining on me every day,"   
  
Snape's rhythm was jolted on every beat by his deep pelvic thrusts as he began to strut his way around the room.   
  
"When it's warm outside   
  
And the look in your eyes   
  
Is longing to show me the way   
  
No, no, I don't want to wait."   
  
And at this, Harry knew without a doubt, that Snape was *not* using the editorial "me" and "you," oh no! No. He was talking to DUMBLEDORE!   
  
Snape sang:   
  
"Just one kiss from you, and suddenly   
  
I see the road laid out in front of me"   
  
(he held up his arm, on which the Dark Mark glittered menacingly)   
  
"You gave me strength," (he flexed his biceps and triceps) "you give me hope" (he prayed on bended knee)   
  
"When you hold me in your arms you make me whole" (embracing his own torso)   
  
"And I don't know just what I would do   
  
Without one kiss from you"   
  
On that last line, Snape pointed at Dumbledore.   
  
Harry could absolutely not watch this. He tore his eye away from the keyhole and stood with his back to the wall, straining his ears, though it really wasn't that hard to hear Snape's singing.   
  
"I don't wanna hear my time will come   
  
When it feels like it's already here   
  
We should learn to walk before we run   
  
But why go anywhere when you're so near   
  
'Cause when I reach out to you   
  
So sad and confused   
  
And feeling like I could cry   
  
You dry my eyes.   
  
Just one kiss from you, and suddenly..."   
  
Harry put his fingers in his ears.   
  
'No! No! No! No! NO!' he was saying to himself. 'I'm dreaming I have to be dreaming!' But after pinching himself red and sore: 'They're drunk, they have to be drunk! Too much butterbeer! Or... it's a trap, they're trying to trick someone. Maybe me!'   
  
Snape didn't sound like he was "acting," especially as he dropped the melody, and said, in his low, smoldering voice:   
  
"I'm dreaming of one kiss from you   
  
A love long and true   
  
We'll go on and on and...   
  
I'm looking for one kiss goodnight   
  
To last all my life   
  
On and on and..."   
  
Harry shook his head. He began to descend the stairs. He turned back. He turned around again. He turned around again again. And the whole time, Snape's voice was growing hoarse... or husky...   
  
"Just one kiss from you, and suddenly   
  
I see the road laid out in front of me   
  
You give me strength, you give me hope   
  
And when you hold me in your arms   
  
You make me whole   
  
And I don't know what I would do   
  
Without one kiss from you."   
  
And as the synthetic beat died and the birds, apparently unconscious, ceased their cries, Snape's voice rumbled out, sharp and cold.   
  
"I'm looking for one kiss goodnight   
  
To last all my life."   
  
Harry's eyes bent toward the keyhole one last time. He was still deciding whether to knock or not.   
  
His look settled the question for him:   
  
Just one glance at Snape's vindictive grin.   
  
Just one glimpse of Dumbledore's flushed face.   
  
Just one moment of: "Oh, Snape! Such a throbbing muscle of love!"   
  
Harry turned and ran down the stairs, not caring how much noise he made. In fact, he ran all the way back to the Gryffindor boys' dormitory, not stopping even after he toppled a suit of armor. When he arrived, he cowered in his bed, muttering 'What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?' until the light turned gray and morning had come upon Hogwarts. 


	6. Chapter 6: Part One Denouement

TITLE: Mary-Sue and the Bombastic Booty (6/?)   
  
AUTHOR NAME: Connor Coyne (mdunham2)   
  
AUTHOR EMAIL: vehiclecitykid@hotmail.com   
  
CATEGORY: Artsy-fartsy parody, dark humor, Your Mom   
  
KEYWORDS: Your Mom   
  
SPOILERS: This chapter spoiled your Mom.   
  
RATING: G (sorry, just this chapter)   
  
SUMMARY: Your Mom.   
  
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. The chapter apologizes to your Mom.   
  
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Your Mom.   
  
And so, with the sound of approximately four-score and seven hits, Part I has concluded with the sound of MSBB readers all 'round the globe getting sick in front of their computers.   
  
Chapter 6!   
  
TIME: 1/11/2002   
  
PLACE: The Windy City...   
  
mdunham2 scratches his head.   
  
He is sitting in a cubicle on the forth floor of the Campus Development offices of the Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago, 259 E. Erie St., at which he is a temp worker.   
  
'How can I let the readers know,' our young hero wonders, 'how this story was written, and why it's so weird?'   
  
It is a grave problem, and one he has been considering for many days. Ever since he started work on Mary-Sue and the Bombastic Booty, a central question was how to communicate the tight rigor of a plot with so many requirements.   
  
Requirements such as fulfilling, in the story, each and every Harry Potter Fan-Fiction pet peeve on the Sugarquill thread http://pub40.ezboard.com/fsugarquillfrm4.showMessage?topicID=675.topic...   
  
Or creating a Mary-Sue who would be guilty on every point on the Harry Potter Mary Sue litmus test posted at www.theninemuses.net/hp/work/marysue.html...   
  
How about finding a ship for all of the characters listed on the Fiction Alley Park T-Shirt advertised on http://www.cafepress.com/cp/store/store.aspx?storeid=fictionalley?   
  
And last but not least, keeping his own promise made on the OBHWF post http://fictionalley.sectorlink.org/fictionalleypark/forums/showthread.php3?s=&threadid=1801&perpage=40&pagenumber=1...   
  
"Will anyone realize the beautiful yet strict intricacy of my magnum opus?" mdunham asks aloud, pompously, which is not to say unpretentiously, scratching his clouded yet arrogant, would-be-famous-neo-avant-garde-author's head.   
  
"Nope," he concludes.   
  
'Hmmm...' he thinks, bending over the screen.   
  
The new chapter doesn't seem to be progressing too quickly.   
  
'I need to stall,' he thinks. 'Buy myself some time...'   
  
Awkward silence.   
  
Sweating angst thick enough to stain the carpet, our hero cries out:   
  
"Will it never be finished? Will I never be free?"   
  
He realizes he must consult his MSBB spreadsheet... looking over the list of pet peeves for the six-hundred-and-sixty-second time he sees several he is completely unable to fulfill.   
  
For example... "Author note insertion." How is he going to do that?   
  
A/N: How am I going to do that?   
  
Or... "Author cameos, friends, etc."   
  
A/N: How am I going to do that?   
  
Suddenly, the streets fill with noise as a giant helicopter, which has just made a roundabout trip from Great Britain, to Texas, to Slovakia, and back over to Chicago, lands on the roof of the hospital.   
  
Silence.   
  
Silence.   
  
Awkward silence.   
  
'Ding!' says the elevator, and clamors and yells gush into the halls, spilling into the cubicle where mdunham2 is not working. It's quite a crowd!   
  
All of mdunham2's Harry Potter fanfic friends are there: jepetta (his henpecked girlfriend), Helen Vader, roccrose, RonRox, Lady Rhianna, Arabella, P.J. Babington, Neppi Weasley, Calypso8604, Ennia, MiowMiow, PhoenixAtlantis, delcj, and White Dormouse.   
  
So are all the people who've reviewed the first five chapters of MSBB, or heck, who've reviewed mdunham2 at all: Eliza Snape, iscripticus, aylapascal, Lady Lupin, Magikos Grl, Oi, RJ Anderson, and magickrissy.   
  
There are probably some other people too (it's a really really really big group), and they all squeeze into mdunham2's cubicle (Elizabeth, who just got back from a meeting across the hall says "eep!" with surprise, before deciding to join the throng).   
  
RonRox plugs in a colorwheel, MiowMiow the strobe, Neppi the black light, and Ennia distributes peaches.   
  
That's because they're Hufflepuffs.   
  
"Let's party!" cries roccrose, pointing to her five boyfriends, and on cue everyone starts dancing.   
  
There is music. Beautiful music, and it's being sung by none other than Alan Rickman!!!   
  
Calypso8604 and Lady Rhianna scream in delight (crazy Slytherins) and the floor begins to shake under the percussive pressure of a hundred stomping feet.   
  
Jepetta, however, looks annoyed, and she slips over to the corner from whence the mdunham2, the writer-God, surveys the chaos.   
  
"Why," she asks, perturbed, "didn't you let me beta-read this?"   
  
"Because," he answers, smugly, "you'd never let me submit it."   
  
"Besides," he adds, "when are you going to submit that Draco slash you wrote?"   
  
"Great," she sighs. "Now they all know."   
  
The song is over, Alan bows his way out of the room, though half of the girls chase him down the hall to the elevator.   
  
"What now?" asks RonRox.   
  
The phone rings.   
  
Everyone is quiet... in curious... in penitential awe.   
  
mdunham2 picks up the phone.   
  
"Who is it?" squeaks Neppi.   
  
"It's J.K.R." says mdunham2. "Mmmm... mmmm... Okay. Bye."   
  
He hangs up the phone, sits down at the computer, and resumes typing.   
  
"Welllll?" asks roccrose.   
  
"Oh. She just said she's going to have Justin Finch-Fletchley rule the world after all. But now if you don't mind, I have to write chapter seven. I think I'll get back to the plot this time..." 


	7. Chapter 7: Hermione Granger and the Grap...

TITLE: Mary-Sue and the Bombastic Booty (7/?)   
  
AUTHOR NAME: Connor Coyne (mdunham2)   
  
AUTHOR EMAIL: vehiclecitykid@hotmail.com   
  
CATEGORY: Artsy-fartsy parody, dark humor   
  
KEYWORDS: Harry, Artaud, Weasley, fifth, ship   
  
RATING: PG-13   
  
SPOILERS: All four Books, possibly forever   
  
SUMMARY: Part II brings about the "many improbable ships" promised in Part I. Snogging. Shagging. Shaving. Well, not that much shaving, really. Having opened the Pandora's Box, Harry must confront titillating tribulations of the temporal type, as well as, you guessed it, his own dark past.   
  
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended. Artaud quote from a text to introduce an exhibition of his portraits and drawings, Galerie Pierre, July 1947, printed at http://www.antoninartaud.org/reinvention.html, "The Reinvention of the Human Face," by Donald Gardner. Reference to Cassandra Claire is meant to refer to Cassandra Claire. Therefore, this chapter apologizes to Cassandra Claire. And H/H shippers. Even though they deserved it.   
  
AUTHOR' S NOTE: This story is inspired by the threads listed in Chapter 6. This chapter is dedicated to one Adriana, who I hope reads this and enjoys it. Chapter 8 will be dedicated to Paul. Lastly, I'm giving the chapters names from now on, because I want to.   
  
Part Two:   
  
MOLLY WEASLEY and the RHYTHM METHOD   
  
or   
  
DUMBLEDORE and the CHICKEN POX   
  
or   
  
MARY-SUE RESIDES   
  
---------------------------------------------   
  
"The human face   
  
is an empty power, a   
  
field of death...   
  
... after countless thousands of years   
  
that the human face has spoken   
  
and breathed   
  
one still has the impression   
  
that it hasn't even begun to   
  
say what it is and what it knows."   
  
-- Antonin Artaud   
  
---------------------------------------------   
  
CHAPTER 7:   
  
HERMIONE GRANGER and the GRAPES OF WRATH   
  
"Woah!" said Ron Weasley, his eyes bugging out like a frog firmly squeezed in the vicelike grip of a malicious preteen boy.   
  
"I know!" said Harry, "Strangest dream I ever had... think there's something Freudian going on there."   
  
"Something what?"   
  
"Never mind."   
  
Harry and Ron were sitting at breakfast, poking at the sugared waffles, nibbling at the pumpkin pasties, and sipping the pumpkin juice.   
  
"What's with all the pumpkins lately?" asked Ron. "I don't get it."   
  
"Neither do I, but I think it's a little heavy handed to serve the same food all the time."   
  
"Stereotypical! What do they think, that's all we eat and drink?"   
  
Harry shrugged.   
  
"Still!" added Ron. "What a dream. I've never heard of that. And Dumbledore and Snape were... ... ... snogging?!"   
  
"I couldn't see exactly what was going on. I just know Snape had the most terrible smile on his face. The same sort of look he gets when he's going to deduct points from Gryffindor. And Dumbledore was even stranger. He seemed startled... but in a good sort of way."   
  
"Wicked!"   
  
Ron had a Rupert Grint-like smile on his face.   
  
"Wicked?!"   
  
Harry's expression had nothing of Daniel Radcliffe in it.   
  
"I mean it... in a bad way," said Ron.   
  
"Oh."   
  
"I just think it's really strange that you'd be having this dream now of all times. I mean, he's up to something. That's for bloody certain."   
  
"Who?"   
  
"Snape."   
  
"Snape? Up to something?"   
  
"I think Hagrid's got Fluffy guarding something again, and Snape's trying to get past. He's limping just like after he got bit in the leg by Fluffy."   
  
Harry blinked.   
  
And looked over to the staff table. Snape sat near the end, chin propped on hands, head bobbing slightly as though he struggled to stay awake.   
  
At Snape's side hovered Artaud. The ghost seemed less morose and somber than usual. Instead, he turned his head up slightly, his eyes dripping closed, as though he was exalting the Great Hall with the sublimely sweet and fragrant peace of the first perfect May morning, when you still have some 'Peeps' left over from Easter, and they've just gotten a little stale, so instead of eating them plain, you put them in the microwave and watch them swell until they explode in a dripping brown marshmallow-caramel mess.   
  
Such was Artaud's disposition.   
  
"Where's Hermione?" asked Harry.   
  
"Don't know. She's working on something, though. Again."   
  
A hush fell on the room, like a dead owl would.   
  
*Thunk!*   
  
It had become customary for all of the boys at Hogwarts to observe a moment of silence whenever Mary-Sue entered or left a room.   
  
But something was different this time.   
  
"She looks terrible," Ron gushed in penitential awe.   
  
And she did look terrible. Terrible!beautiful!Mary-Sue. Her eyes were slightly reddened as though they had been brushed gently by feathers dipped in the sweet perfume of broken rosebuds mixed with the finest aloe Vera moisturizing ingredients. Her cheeks flushed a rosy pink, as though dusted by melancholy, halcyon breezes from her far home of Ohio.   
  
She gave a single, dainty, adorable sniff, and half of the Great Hall fainted.   
  
"I am in love with her," said Harry.   
  
"Me too," said Ron.   
  
"What a bitch," said Hermione, sitting down next to them.   
  
"Hermione!" Ron was startled. "You look awful."   
  
Hermione did, indeed, look awful. Her eyes were red and swollen, as if she hadn't slept in days, her face was as pale as a bed sheet, and she had a disgusting runny nose which she uselessly dabbed at with her napkin.   
  
"Yes, well," she said, "I haven't gotten any sleep lately."   
  
"What have you been up to?" asked Harry.   
  
"Nothing!" she snapped.   
  
Harry turned his attention back to Mary-Sue. The Slytherins had prepared her place of honor, as usual, with three velvet pillows placed around her chair to make it cozier for her willowy form. Mary Sue didn't acknowledge this, however. She sat at the end of the Slytherin table, dropped her face into her hands, and looked up, dejected.   
  
"Ahem!" said Dumbledore, standing.   
  
But nobody laughed.   
  
It just wasn't funny anymore.   
  
"I don't normally speak at regular meals, but I have to make an exception this time. We have several pressing announcements to make. First, I must regretfully inform you that we will be losing a staff member. Antonin Artaud has been gracious enough to guide us through these first several weeks as our Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, but he must now leave us... some important business will take him to France. Of course, Tristan Tzara applied for the position once again, but we told him nothing had changed and he was still misinformed. He took his ducks and umbrellas with him but left a few manifestoes, if anyone would like one. Ultimately, however, I have had no choice but to transfer Severus Snape to the position of DADA teacher. He will take over where Artaud left off."   
  
Snape's eyes gleamed in fevered delight.   
  
"Your potions classes will henceforth be taught by Gilderoy Lockhart."   
  
Ron and Harry turned to each-other in surprise.   
  
There was a crash.   
  
Hermione had fallen onto the table, spilling her drink.   
  
"So much for pumpkin juice," mumbled Harry.   
  
Ron nodded.   
  
But Dumbledore wasn't finished.   
  
"Now I have to tell you about something that has really pissed me off. I don't mind telling you, and it is high time someone did something about it, and as Headmaster, I'm going to do something about it."   
  
Dumbledore shook like a caffeinated beatnik.   
  
He continued:   
  
"This House rivalry thing is getting riddikulus. I'm really getting sick of it... all the plotting and conniving and back-stabbing... all the trickery and cliquishness. All the unnecessary hate. It's quite wearying, it gives me all sorts of headaches, and I demand that the two responsible houses face up to their uncalled-for behavior."   
  
Harry braced himself...   
  
"Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff! You should be ashamed of yourselves. To think, Ravenclaws, with your Hegel and Marx and Grindelwald, your shades and black robes, that you would ignore and look down upon your brothers and sisters in magic, just because they're a bunch of unimaginative, dull, plain-looking saps you can sucker into scrubbing your floors."   
  
A number of Ravenclaws snickered at this, and the Hufflepuffs looked fit to kill.   
  
"And Hufflepuffs," Dumbledore added, "to think that you would save up the proceeds from your bake sales to buy hundreds of metal toothpicks, and then spend six hours a day for thirty years undermining the foundation beneath the Ravenclaw common room so that it would collapse at this very moment --"   
  
Dumbledore was interrupted by a distant yet Earth-shaking "BOOM!"   
  
The Ravenclaw prefect shrieked and ran from the Great Hall, and now the Hufflepuffs snickered.   
  
"Unacceptable," Dumbledore said. "Therefore, I order that your two houses must take all of your classes together until you are better behaved. This means, of course, that the Slytherins and Gryffindors will also share all of their classes. I ask of them only that they maintain their splendid example of inter-house camaraderie."   
  
Over at the Slytherin table, Draco quietly dabbed at this mouth with his napkin, picked up a cast iron cauldron full of gruel, and swung it forcefully against the back of Colin Creevey's head. Colin collapsed forward.   
  
Dumbledore continued:   
  
"Are there any questions-on-thisnotherearen'tgood. Then I have only one more announcement to make, and then it will be time for your classes. Our staff has decided that Mary-Sue Darkstar-Riddle, for her cool-headed, thoughtful, and ingenious approach to learning magic, will be advanced a year. She is now officially a sixth-year."   
  
The Slytherins cheered fanatically. Mary-Sue cried delicately.   
  
"Unfortunately, we have also learned that the Sorting Hat made a mistake in placing Mary-Sue in Slytherin. Apparently she lied in telling it she abused small, furry animals. The Hat explained to us that Mary-Sue actually belongs in Gryffindor. Today she will move into Gryffindor Tower, and her points, including the Quidditch match recently won against Gryffindor, will go to Gryffindor."   
  
The Slytherins collectively dropped their plates, and then their faces, yet collectively, into their plates.   
  
The whole Gryffindor table hooted and hollered. Mary-Sue cried daintily.   
  
"Now," said Dumbledore. "Off to class."   
  
***   
  
"Who can tell me," said McGonagall sternly, peering down at her class through her glasses, "what the Animagus Law of 1897 stated?"   
  
One and only one hand went into the air. It was a fair, ringed hand, fingers distended, and as it rose, brushed shimmering effervescent coils of silvery-gold goodness, as if to languidly brush the heavens.   
  
"Miss Darkstar-Riddle?"   
  
"Yes," began Mary-Sue, with a weary glare at her grinning Gryffindor compatriots, "the Animagus Law of 1897 stated that Animagi did not need to be registered. This was in response to the law of 1893 requiring registration, which caused a huge dispute among a community of monkey Animagi who wanted to do what monkeys do in anonymity. But of course, then Lugger the Peruvian Llama Enchanter trained a bunch of llamas to transfigure into humans, which caused an ever greater confusion, and led to the Animagi Registration Act of 1901."   
  
"Very good," responded McGonagall in eager pride, "such a splendidly complete answer. Oh, I'm so very happy to have you in my class! Ten points for Gryffindor."   
  
"Thanks Minerva," was Mary-Sue's dulcet reply.   
  
"Now..." McGonagall began again, "who can tell me why we're learning history in a Transfiguration class?"   
  
Mary-Sue raised her hand.   
  
"Miss Darkstar-Riddle?" asked McGonagall, smiling.   
  
"Yes," said Mary-Sue, "I would suspect we're learning it because this year we will start work on transfiguration of living creatures. All of the history you've taught us applies to Animagi, except we won't be learning that, I daresay. Rather, you will have us transforming dangerous monsters into small mammals of the rodent variety, I suspect."   
  
"You are corr--" said McGonagall, but Mary-Sue interrupted her.   
  
"Becoming an Animagus is far too difficult for adolescents in general. I suppose I am a bit of an exception, though. It runs in my family. My father's mother's great-great-grandmother was in fact a Kneazle. So I can turn into a cat."   
  
"How... how... how marvelously impressive!" gushed McGonagall in penitent awe.   
  
"Harry," whispered Ron.   
  
Harry looked up.   
  
"Look how quiet Hermione is, while Mary-Sue's totally showing her up."   
  
"Yes. It's strange," said Harry.   
  
Hermione sat at the back of the class, completely ignoring McGonagall's lecture and Mary-Sue's answer. Instead, Hermione scribbled frantically on scraps of paper, occasionally crumpling one and discarding it.   
  
"Weasley?! Potter?!"   
  
Harry sat bolt upright, too late, to find McGonagall standing over his desk, glaring down imperiously.   
  
"What have I told you about paying attention? If you don't behave, I may turn one of you into a roach, a jim, some hash-eeesh so the other will toke up that good stuff and mellow chill for a little while."   
  
She said this in a very un-McGonagall-like tone of voice. Almost a drawl.   
  
"What?" asked Harry and Ron at the same time.   
  
But McGonagall was herself again... more or less.   
  
"Look at Miss Darkstar-Riddle... she's so attentive in class. She does all of her readings well ahead of time, and has such a helpful, competent manner."   
  
Mary-Sue smiled for the first time since breakfast.   
  
"Miss Darkstar-Riddle," asked McGonagall.   
  
"Yes, Minerva?"   
  
"Deduce if you may, what you'll be transfiguring specifically, and how we will procure it."   
  
"Well, I should thi --"   
  
"She's EVIL! She's EVIL! She's EVIL!"   
  
Harry turned around to see Hermione, her face flushed red and furious, leaping up and down on her desk in a sort of spiteful rapture.   
  
"Miss Granger!" howled McGonagall, horrified.   
  
"Her name! It's an acronym! She's EVIL I tell you!"   
  
"What are you saying?" sneered one of the Slytherins.   
  
"She's gone completely starkers," said Ron to Harry. "I knew it would happen sooner or later."   
  
"Exactly!" said Hermione. "She has gone starkers!"   
  
"You've gone starkers!" yelled Ron.   
  
"No," said Hermione, calmly. "She has." And she pointed to Mary-Sue.   
  
The air was punctured into silence, before deflating into startled lungs.   
  
"Did you hear what she said about Mary-Sue?" buzzed back and forth. Only Mary-Sue seemed not to notice or care.   
  
"It's true!" explained Hermione, stepping from desk to desk, gesticulating angrily.   
  
"I don't know how many of you remember... I seem to be the only one here with any sort of a memory, but it seems to me that You-Know-Who's original name was Tom Marvolo Riddle. Which is an anagram for 'I Am Lord Voldemort.' (At this another horrified intake of breath.) At first, I thought the name Mary-Sue Darkstar-Riddle was just a coincidence. Then I saw the way she charmed all the boys in the school, and how she charmed all the teachers. The only people who saw right through her were myself and Professor Artaud, and he's gone, so I guess I have to pick up the slack. Thanks Harry. Thanks Ron!"   
  
Hermione spat the last four words vociferously, but she managed to go on.   
  
"So we know she's related to the Dark Lord. But can we prove she's evil? All you have to do is rearrange the letters of her name, and you get the answer, just as you would with Tom Marvolo Riddle."   
  
At this Hermione leapt high and far and came down on McGonagall's desk, sending a spray of papers flying into the air and drifting down like feathers.   
  
Hermione started to shriek:   
  
"I AM LADY RUDDER STARKERS! I AM LADY RUDDER STARKERS! I AM LADY RUDDER STARKERS!"   
  
"Hermione, stop it!" yelled McGonagall.   
  
"I AM LADY RUDDER STARKERS!"   
  
"Hermione, get off my desk!"   
  
"I AM LADY RUDDER STARKERS!"   
  
"Sonorus," murmured Mary-Sue, not bothering to get out her wand, and her voice projected at a higher volume than the screaming Hermione Granger.   
  
"As I was saying, Minerva, and class, I should think we will be transfiguring troll babies into mice. This will be very helpful for a great number of reasons. For starters, it will be a challenge, for trolls bear very little in common with mice, with differences in the areas of stature, diet, disposition, and amount of hair. I should think this will require us, as students, to take full advantage of our transfigurative resources. We will also be doing a service to the world, as mice are more pleasant, sociable, and intelligent than your average troll. Finally, it will be an interesting experiment bringing the baby trolls here, as they are always guarded by their mothers. I should think this will be accomplished by running into the lair, grabbing the infant trolls, and immediately Apparating back to Hogwarts."   
  
"Ha," said Hermione, dropping to the floor.   
  
For the first time, Mary-Sue turned her attention to Hermione, crooked smile revealing just the faintest hint of disdain.   
  
"Yes?" she asked.   
  
"You can't Apparate on the Hogwarts grounds," said Hermione with exaggerated pretension. "You can't. There are charms to block it. I read it in Hogwarts, A History."   
  
"Oh," said Mary-Sue. "You must have read the new edition then. Yes, well they did dumb it down a little, if I may say. The 1836 edition of Hogwarts, A History explains in detail the charms placed on the school to prevent Apparition. There are, I believe, several loopholes, mainly involving the grounds in the proximity of Forbidden Forest, and Astronomy Tower. But I shouldn't attempt it if I were you. It's rather complicated."   
  
"You bitch!" roared Hermione, and pounced on Mary-Sue.   
  
They both collapsed to the floor. The whole class sprung up, running to the front to presumably watch Hermione suffer the wrath of Mary-Sue.   
  
"I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!!!" Hermione shouted over and over again, grabbing Mary-Sue by the shimmering locks of her sublime, flowing, graceful mothspun hair, and slamming her head onto the flagstones. (If you need some mental imagery, consult the first chapter of Draco Dormiens by Fanon Demigoddess Cassandra Claire.)   
  
But Mary-Sue's hand had reached into her robe for her wand. McGonagall too was drawing her wand, as were several of the students.   
  
"I HATE YOU!" Hermione screamed.   
  
And then it happened.   
  
A voice, a feminine voice, said these words: "Avada –"   
  
And another: "Delego!"   
  
And another: "Labrusco!"   
  
And finally: " – Kedavra!"   
  
At once the room was filled with thick, black fog. Harry wretched and gasped for air.   
  
There was a violent strobelike flash of green and violet light, a smell of saltpeter, and a sound of bubbles bursting.   
  
Eyes watering, Harry buried his face in his robe, forcing himself to breathe as the smoke gradually cleared. As the torchlight began to shine through again, the front of the classroom came into focus.   
  
First he saw McGonagall, standing at the front with her mouth wide open and tears streaming down her face. Her wand dangled from her right hand, and her arms hung limply at her sides.   
  
Then he saw Mary-Sue. She was on her back, propped up on her hands, and her robe had been torn and scorched in places. Through the soot on her face, Harry could see she was very pale, and for the first time ever, she wore an expression of distress.   
  
Then, turning his attention to the space in front of McGonagall's desk, Harry saw a blast mark streaking out from the center of the classroom. The flagstones glowed a faint, dull red and smoked.   
  
And finally, at the center of the mess, where the floor lay shattered and cracked and glimmering with rapidly fading heat lay a small stone bowl, cradling a cluster of plump, red grapes.   
  
Hermione was gone. 


End file.
